Former Provost Lieberman dies

Gerald J. Lieberman, former Stanford
provost and a pioneer in the fields of statistics and operations
research, died at his campus home on Tuesday, May 18, of
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease). He was
73.
A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. Monday, May 24, in Kresge
Auditorium.

Lieberman served as provost or
acting provost during the tenures of three Stanford presidents --
Richard Lyman, Donald Kennedy and Gerhard Casper -- including the
transition from Kennedy to Casper.

"Jerry was a good and wise man who
was an exemplary citizen of the university -- understanding every
aspect of it in a way few people do," Casper said. "To me, he was
not only an indispensable guide and adviser in my first year but
became almost immediately a friend whom I trusted
completely."

Lieberman also held a number of
other administrative positions, including vice provost and dean of
graduate studies and research and associate dean of humanities and
sciences. He was a key architect of Stanford's operations research
program, and was active in faculty governance. He also chaired the
committee that planned Stanford's multi-year centennial
celebration.

Friend and colleague Albert Hastorf
noted that Lieberman was "Everyman" in the academic community, as a
teacher, as a researcher, and as an administrator. "He was an
extraordinary person. His spirit will be with us, but he will be
missed," said Hastorf, professor emeritus of psychology.

"He was the archetypal faculty
statesperson," said Lyman. "He was a person whom the faculty kept
turning to in order to help solve the most difficult problems,
because they knew that he was the soul of integrity and that he
would represent their best interests, and their best side as
well."

"Jerry Lieberman was not only a
superb scholar, provost and dean; he was a consistent and
thoughtful guardian of Stanford's values," added Kennedy. "As our
research policies experienced new challenges during the 1980s --
both from growing efforts at federal control and from increasing
incentives toward commercialization -- he was a principled voice
for independence and restraint. Stanford was the fortunate
beneficiary of his good sense and his good humor, and of his great
influence in shaping what we are."

An illustration of Lieberman's
indefatigable spirit was his relationship with the Center for the
Study of Language and Information (CSLI). In the last few years, as
his illness began interfering with his ability to communicate, he
volunteered his services as a subject for CSLI's Project
Archimedes, a research effort designed to ensure that people with
disabilities are not left behind by the computer
revolution.

Lieberman tested a variety of
equipment, including a voice synthesizer that CSLI researchers
outfitted with special word-prediction software. As a user enters a
phrase, the software anticipates the user's next word, allowing him
or her to select it with minimal effort. Lieberman's synthesizer
was pre-programmed so that he could rattle off his trademark phrase
-- "Take the rest of the day off!" -- with a single keystroke,
something that he delighted in saying at the end of especially long
or difficult days.

"CSLI's advanced technology helped
Jerry to remain actively engaged in campus affairs for several
years," said the center's director, John Perry. "But he was
particularly proud of the fact that he was contributing to research
that can benefit many other people."

Lieberman was born Dec. 31, 1925, in
Brooklyn, N. Y. His parents, Joseph and Ida, were recent immigrants
from Lithuania and his father worked for the Metropolitan Life
Insurance Co. Jerry Lieberman was an honor student in high school
and gained admittance to the highly competitive Cooper Union, where
he earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1948.
After getting a master's degree in statistics from Columbia
University in 1949, he came to Stanford as a doctoral student in
statistics, and he never left.

In 1953, the year he earned his
doctorate, he joined the Stanford faculty in statistics and
industrial engineering. At the time of his death, he was professor
emeritus of operations research and statistics.

Lieberman's research focused on
reliability theory and statistical quality control. He developed
innovative methods for answering some of the key questions in the
inspection of products: When and how should items be sampled? When
should sampling be sequential? When should every 10th item by
sampled? Which characteristics need to be sampled more often, and
which can be checked less frequently?

With Albert Bowker, former
chancellor of the University of California-Berkeley, Lieberman
wrote the Handbook of Industrial Statistics that set the
stage for the widespread use of control charts in industry and for
alternative methods of sampling inspection.

In the early 1960s, Lieberman was
part of a task force appointed by then-Provost Fred Terman to
consolidate faculty interest in operations research, a discipline
that uses mathematical modeling to come up with optimal solutions
for practical problems, based on the application of mathematical
models and techniques, computer algorithms and systems analysis.
Lieberman chaired the interdepartmental program on operations
research that began in 1962; it became a full-fledged department in
the School of Engineering three years later. He continued as chair
until 1975, when he was named associate dean of humanities and
sciences.

Lieberman co-authored an
award-winning textbook, Introduction to Operations Research,
with Frederick S. Hillier, professor emeritus of
engineering-economic systems and operations research. It has become
one of the most widely used textbooks in the field. In addition to
the two books, he wrote more than 50 technical papers on these
subjects.

"Jerry Lieberman was a very special
role model for so many of his colleagues and students," said
Hillier, who had Lieberman as his freshman adviser, undergraduate
adviser, graduate adviser, dissertation adviser, mentor, friend and
co-author. "Beyond being a fine scholar, he had tremendous wisdom,
integrity and courage. He gave of himself so generously to others.
He was such a special individual, a real prince of a
man."

Lieberman was active in a number of
professional societies, including the National Academy of
Engineering, to which he was elected in 1987; the Institute of
Management Science; the Operations Research Society of America; and
the International Statistical Institute. He was a fellow of the
American Statistical Association; the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics; the American Society for Quality Control and the
American Association for the Advancement of Science. His
contributions were recognized in 1997 when he received the George
E. Kimball Medal from the Institute for Operations Research and the
Management Sciences. "For tens of thousands of students, faculty
and practitioners around the world, Jerry Lieberman is Operations
Research," the citation read.

In addition to his research,
Lieberman had a full career as a campus administrator. In 1977, he
was tapped to serve as vice provost and dean of research. In that
role, he spoke out nationally on science policy, including such
issues as academic freedom, secrecy in research, government efforts
to restrict research by foreign students, indirect cost
reimbursement and university-industry relations.

At the request of then-President
Richard W. Lyman, Lieberman served as acting provost from January
to August 1979, when Donald Kennedy returned from a stint in
Washington, D.C., to take over the university's number two
position.

"One thing I learned as an
administrator," Lieberman said in an interview, "is that you never
solve problems. You postpone them." What is decided one day can
easily be undone the next day, he explained.

Lieberman decided to return to
teaching in 1985.

At commencement that year he was
presented the Kenneth M. Cuthbertson Award for exceptional service
to Stanford. He was cited for having "the wisdom and academic
foresight . . . to recognize the potential of the new
interdisciplinary field of operations research, and for the skills
of persuasion he used to turn that orphan into the ranking
department of its kind in the world."

He also was recognized for his
"tireless efforts on behalf of Stanford's graduate students" and
for "dedication to the defense of this faculty's first principles
of research -- freedom, openness, accessibility -- in the councils
of government as well as of his university."

The party thrown in his honor when
he left the vice provost position played to his love of sports and
became a model used for later social events. Telling Lieberman she
was taking him to a small gathering at the Lou Henry Hoover House,
Marlene Wine, assistant to the president, blindfolded the retiring
administrator and drove him and his family to the 50-yard-line of
Stanford Stadium's football field.

Tables had been set up for a party,
with several members of the football team recruited as waiters.
Then-Athletics Director Andy Geiger presented Lieberman with a
"good-anywhere pass" to the stadium, which prompted Lieberman to
comment, "If I had known I was getting this, I would have stepped
down years ago."

Later, as centennial celebration
chairman, Lieberman helped plan a May 1987 dinner for 2,000 guests
under tents on the football field at which then-Secretary of State
George Shultz hosted his counterparts from Canada and
Mexico.

In an interview after accepting the
centennial post, Lieberman joked that he accepted the job "in a
weak moment" as he spent five hours sitting next to Kennedy on an
airplane heading for Washington, D.C.

Turning serious, he said he viewed
the centennial as an opportunity to show off what Stanford had
accomplished.

"When I first came here, Stanford
was not a great university," he said. "It was a private school in
the West; it was OK, but nothing sensational. I watched it grow to
be one of the leading research universities in this
country.

"This is an accomplishment and I
think that somehow we ought to bring forth some of the things that
we have done and show the world, the public, just what a university
can do, and what it can contribute to society."

While chairing the centennial,
Lieberman became more active in faculty governance, serving as
chair of the Faculty Senate in 1987-88 and chair of the Advisory
Board in 1989-90. In June 1991, he was one of five faculty who
proposed that the Faculty Senate undertake a broad study of
education at Stanford in the context of severe budget cuts that
were on the horizon. This led to creation of the ad hoc Senate
Committee on Education and Scholarship -- also known as the Zare
committee -- which worked closely with the university's leaders to
provide faculty input on budget decisions.

In February 1992, Kennedy again
leaned on Lieberman to serve the institution -- this time as the
provost who later would spend long hours teaching Gerhard Casper, a
veteran of the University of Chicago, about Stanford University. At
the time, Kennedy said that "Jerry has played all the provostial
positions and played them well. Most important of all, he has the
confidence and regard of the faculty."

In 1994 Casper announced the
creation of nine fellowships in Lieberman's name that are awarded
to graduate students with leadership potential who intend to pursue
careers in university teaching and research. Casper told the
assembled crowd that Lieberman "is truly a remarkable citizen of
the university with the strongest academic and institutional
values."

Upon his retirement in 1995, 130
colleagues, friends and family members, including four college
presidents and a Nobel Prize winner, gathered to mark the event.
They presented Lieberman with two volumes written by colleagues and
friends to reflect his lifelong interests: a collection of
scholarly papers for a special issue of the journal Probability
in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, plus a book of
essays titled Education in a Research University. In his
remarks at the event, Kennedy praised Lieberman's blunt, honest
manner and his habit of thoughtfully injecting principles into
discussions. "Great institutions are built on people who care about
quality, as well as people who care about people. Jerry has both of
these characteristics in abundance and we are lucky to have had him
with us," he said.

Lieberman is survived by his wife,
Helen, of Stanford; daughter, Janet Lieberman Argyres, son-in-law,
Steve and their two sons, Brian and Scottie, of Castro Valley;
daughters, Joanne and Diana Lieberman, of Palo Alto; son, Michael
Lieberman, and daughter-in-law, Susan Hanson, of Palo Alto; and his
sister, Shirley Ross, of Great Neck, N.Y.

The family prefers that donations be
made to the Gerald Lieberman Memorial Fund, c/o The Office of
Development, 301 Encina Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
94305. SR

Staff writer David Salisbury and
former News Service writer Karen Bartholomew contributed to this
story.